Why Obama is still the favorite

1. Polls usually overrate the standing of the candidate who just held his convention.

2. Mitt Romney just held his convention. But he seems to have gotten a below-average bounce out of it. The national polls that have come out since the Republican National Convention have shown an almost exact tie in the race.

3. If the polls overrate Mr. Romney, and they show only a tie for him now, then he will eventually lose…

[I]f Mr. Obama gets a bounce that’s a bit better than modest — say, he leads in the national polls by in the neighborhood five or six points next week, as Mr. Bush did following his convention in 2004 — Mr. Romney’s position will start to look fairly grim.